Bluetooth vs Android Auto vs sillyness

I have a long commute, about an hour. I have no time to read, but love books. My new car (Chevy Bolt) is super serene to drive, quiet and relaxing.

Perfect recipe for good podcasts and audio books.

Except I can't figure out how to use my phone, apparently.

I have a Pixel 2, fully updated, and everything else works pretty great.

The Bolt's biggest audio system flaw is that it defaults to FM. If you get out, and get back in again, you have to wait a few seconds and tell it to do bluetooth instead. That's annoying. Sometimes with certain apps, like Hoopla, the car controls can only control the phone once you control them once through the phone.

Also there's no great place on the vent to put the holder thing, so it's off near the drivers side window.

So I bought a cable to use with Android Auto. The phone, which was used and is older, seems to not hold on to the cable very much. If the cable falls out, you get FM radio, very loud, and you have a few seconds of Dave and Wendy's wacky morning show. Then plugging it back in doesn't give you Android Auto again, it just gives you sadness, and Wendy's take on the best of the class B local news.

What is the right way to do this? I am apparently very dumb in the ways of car audio.

The Crosstrek has a nice long Anker cord and plugs into the USB port in the center console storage (there's even a cutout in the lid for a cable to pass through).  Only way I could get AA to work for me.

When I had my Volt, I disliked the factory bluetooth for the same reason. Then when I went from iPhone to Android, it wouldn't connect correctly, which made me unreasonably irate. So what did I do? Bought an aux bluetooth adapter on Amazon (the kind with a 3.5mm male and USB for power) and since I had both ports in my center console cubby, I was good to go. Leave the stereo on aux and you should be right as rain, the bluetooth will auto connect.

The wife's 14 Koup defaults to the CD if you shut it off with the bluetooth playing. I guess sans CD it would default to the FM as well. I wonder if this is just a default setting? 

Get a ProClip mount for your car with a holder that has a cable mount built in for your model phone.

https://www.proclipusa.com/vehicle/dashboard-mounts/chevrolet-bolt/2017

https://www.proclipusa.com/device/phone-holders/google-pixel-2

It isn't a cheap solution, but it just simply works.

Get in the car, plop the phone into the holder, cable is plugged in automatically, weight of device/cable end fixed in place will solve the disconnect issue. 

Once the phone is in place, you can setup the audio how you'd like and it should stay connected for the duration of your trip(s).